I went to a cake conference recently and took a gumpaste flowers course. The instructor was adamant that you should never put a floral wire into your cake, she kept talking about plaques, but never elaborated. What is the right way to dc it and what is a plaque.
Thanks

A plaque can be made of gumpaste, pastillage or even colorflow/run sugar. You would make a circle of gumpaste large enough to sit your flower arrangement on. You could attach them to the dried plaque with royal icing or melted white chocolate, but just a dab so the white icing doesn't show through the wires of your flowers. Then you can just set the arrangement on top of your cake.

The reason the instructor was adamant about not putting wires into cakes is they can have a reaction with the cake itself and make it inedible.

Or you can use a flower pick/ they come in varying sizes also from your cake suppliers.

Has anyone ever watched Sylvia Weinstock decorate one of her cakes?

She pushes the flower wires into the cake.

Maybe they are wrapped with floral tape which might make a difference. The wire itself is not touching the cake.

also depends on local laws. Here in Australia in some states you are "not allowed" to insert wire into a cake even if its only part way to hold up a flower.

Some other states allow it if its a particular type of wire etc.

The other benefit to plaques is that people can lift off the arrangement and keep it forever as a keepsake.

KAREN

you can do a search on this - there is a wide range of opinions on how to handle this. some say it is a no-no, some say there isn't any issue.

I've done it both ways, wire into the cake and then I discovered cocktail straws. They're very small, but the flower wire fits through with no problem and you make a smaller hole in the cake and the wire doesn't touch anything but the straw. I've also used regular straws, the make a bigger hole in the cake.